Take on the World and Win
by reflecting
Summary: Ficlet/Drabble collection connected to my fic "Victory". fem!Mike/Harvey. Snippets out of their relationship, and just generally of them being dorks. Harvey remains a classy bitch, and Mike swears she's an adult, really.
1. Chapter 1

**Pairing: **Mike Ross/Harvey Specter  
><strong>GenreTags: **AU - Gender Changes, Successful!Mike, Ficlet Collection, Developing Relationship

**Notes:** Well, hi, yes...I kinda caved and wrote more of this 'verse. Um. I do have an actual sequel to "Victory" that is like a few paragraphs from being done. I'm sorta suffering from performance anxiety from the amount of positive feedback I got for "Victory", though, so I'm holding on to that story for a while.

Meanwhile, have a few ficlets I couldn't fit into the sequel in progress, because I've fast-forwarded here. I don't know how updates will be: I've only got two snippets written so far, and they're both posted now. I don't want to leave anyone waiting for too long on an update that might not come, so I've gonna keep this story as "complete" as I go. Each drabble could be the last, so...yeah :,D

Again: so, so new to writing Suits fics! English still isn't my first language, and I still haven't got a beta.

Also, I recommend reading "Victory" first, but you can probably skip it if you want. But yeah.

Enjoy! :,D

Title from the song "_All time high_" by Rita Coolidge, from the James Bond movie _Octopussy_.

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><p><em>"All I wanted was a sweet distraction for an hour or two.<em>  
><em>Had no intention to do the things we've done.<em>  
><em>Funny how it always goes with love, when you don't look, you find.<em>  
><em>But then we're two of a kind, we move as one."<em>  
>- <em>All Time High<em>, Rita Coolidge, _Octopussy_

**.**

**I invited you to the dark side, because we have cookies (and cheese), but…**

**.**

After four straight hours of finding _squat_, Harvey caves and accepts Mike's earlier offer to help finish up after she came over and he still wasn't done, on the condition of a signed confidentially agreement. When Mike's pile of briefs is three times the size of his own after just a few hours, and she's not only found the glitch he was looking for, but formed a new strategy to attack the problem with to boot. Harvey blinks, before he looks out into his living room and glares at nothing.

"I am extremely pissed off at the world right now," he declares, frowning, because his own associate had been close to breaking into _tears_ when Harvey had attempted to foist _all _the files off his way. In the end Harvey's refusal to let an idiot mess up their case by spreading snot all over the files, all the while being unreliable in a nervous breakdown, won out.

Which is why he's here, on a Saturday night, in the company of a woman who can not only deep throat, but also quote entire _Star Trek_ episode from memory ("I watched TOS with Grammy and she needed subtitles because of her hearing, okay, and I remember everything I read…it's not that weird, stop looking at me like that!"), _reading through employee records _of all things.

"Something is terribly wrong and unjust. I don't like it, it messes with my Zen," he continues. Pausing, he puts the folders Mike handed him a moment ago away on the sofa table with the rest of them, and reaches for her, pulling Mike into his lap. Squinting, he stares up at her startled expression with narrowed eyes. "Why aren't you working at _Pearson Hardman_? We must fix this."

Mike remains unimpressed, which is another injustice he will correct…at some point. "Harvey, there's nothing _Zen_ about you," she points out, shaking her head and squirming in his lap for a more comfortable position before settling in, resigned. He doesn't bother suppressing a smug smirk. "Also, I'm not quitting my job to start working for you. You don't mix business with pleasure, right? Well, how would that work if I'd think about you bending me over your desk, and fucking me silly, every time I see your office?"

He pauses at this, leaning back a bit to stare at her, serious. "…I should show you my office. I must give you a tour, at the very least, before you decide. A late night tour. Of my office." This is a great idea, surely Mike can see this.

Groaning, Mike face-palms, but not before he catches her smiling. "You're impossible."

He grins. "Not impossible, just improbable."

"I can't decide if that qualifies as a _Trek _reference or a _Sherlock_ reference." She's rolling her eyes heavenward, leaning away from him. She doesn't get far, trapped in his arms and in his lap as she is.

He nuzzles behind her ear, pressing a light kiss on the skin there. "What can I say? I keep things interesting."

"That's one way of putting it," she drawls, shivering.

He goes for the kill. "Also, Mike, with you, business would _be_ pleasure."

There's a moment of silence, before she replies, her voice strained with disbelief and poorly suppressed amusement. "…you're so incredibly cheesy right now I feel like a Saltine cracker." He can tell she's fighting a smile.

He pauses for a moment, nipping at her ear. Grinning widely, he murmurs, "Could you just…eat me up?"

She loses it. "_Oh my God_."

**.**

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><p><strong>End notes: <strong>Yeppp...


	2. Chapter 2

_All I wanted was a sweet distraction for an hour or two.  
><em>_Had no intention to do the things we've done.  
><em>_Funny how it always goes with love, when you don't look, you find.  
><em>_But then we're two of a kind, we move as one."  
><em>- _All Time High_, Rita Coolidge, _Octopussy_

**.**

**I swear I am an adult, a certified genius, and a professional!**

**.**

They're catching a late lunch together, Mike having stopped by to meet Harvey outside of _Pearson Hardman, _having business this way and the time to allow for a few minutes of a rest stop to refuel. They're sitting down on a bench while carefully trying to avoid spilling the condiments from their hot dogs on either Harvey's suit or Mike's dress, talking idly. As they finish eating and are wrapping things up, Harvey inquires about her plans next Friday, and as Mike reaches into her bag to fish out her day planner it occurs to her that before this, they've made their plans mostly over the phone. She realizes this because Harvey is giving her a weird Look, before gesturing to her little book.

"Seriously?" he says, incredulous, to which she frowns and looks down at her planner with the _Black Widow_ logo on it. "What are you, five?"

"I think it's awesome, shut up," she grumbles, making a mental note to not use her _Avengers_ notebook around him until she's given him her unused and still unopened _Star Trek_ one.

Harvey laughs, chucking her under her chin with a knuckle. "Sure thing, Spitfire."

"Hey!" she scolds, or attempts and fails to, because she's grinning and leaning in easily when his offending hand wraps around the back of her neck instead, pulling her close. He kisses her quickly, and it's over before it really begins. They're outside his place of employment, and although she's found that Harvey's a person to show off his things, what they've started building between them isn't on par with signed baseballs or one-upping others with a prettier model on his arm each time at functions he detests.

"Mm, I sometimes forget you come with your own brand of weird," Harvey comments, but the way his eyes crinkle and his lips twitch take any sting out of his words. "Why you're still using a day planner in this day and age instead of getting yourself a real phone is beyond me. I'm sure Donna will be suitably offended when I tell her."

Mike blanches, because she may or may not have a giant girl crush on Donna Paulsen, Goddess Extraordinaire, and no matter how silly she knows it is she suddenly doesn't want Donna to know she's got a _Black Widow_ day planner and a phone which doesn't even have a display in color. Donna is the love child of Pepper Potts and Natasha Romanov, with a dash of Pamela Isley because she isn't afraid to cross the Universes when it comes to Donna, and she tells Harvey as much.

"If I didn't know Donna is straight and thinks you're an adorable puppy to housetrain, I would be worried," Harvey notes, deadpan. Mike rolls her eyes, punching his shoulder, because while she owns up to being a certified pansexual with all the blows and whistles, her crush on Harvey's secretary is completely platonic and mostly hero worship with a dash of _wow get a hold of THAT_. Harmless, if completely _mortifying_. Harvey loves it.

"You dick," she grumbles good naturedly, cracking open her day planner to get back on track and pencil in whatever it is Harvey had planned for them on Friday (she already knows she's free, remembers everything she writes down, but she likes the order it lends her when the sheer amount of information she has to keep track of gets a bit muddled). "So, Friday?"

"Mm, yes," Harvey slings an arm over the back on the bench, leaning back. "There's a private exhibition at an Upper East Side art gallery Friday night, curtsey of a client I recently closed. Jessica insists I go, and I am in dire need of a plus one that won't bore me to tears when I'm already going to be struggling to comprehend how, a bunch of framed paintings with different colored dots, are somehow representing the deep struggle of a lonely soul in purgatory, in any other way than me simply projecting my misery onto them."

Mike snorts, momentarily distracted from the shock of what's being implied. Shaking her head, Mike clears her throat and fidgets, nervous. "Is it, uh, a work function thing?"

Tilting his head, Harvey regards her calmly. "Would it matter if it were?"

Swallowing, Mike tries to tell her heart to calm its tits (she almost glances down to check if her heart's beating so hard her left boob is moving to its rhythm, but restrains herself). "Well, I just…would you want them to...know?"

He raises a brow, seemingly amused, before he leans in closer. "Would I want them to know my plus one is a beautiful, intelligent, and smart mouthed weirdo?"

"_Harvey,"_ she rolls her eyes, blushing, because this is _serious_ and she can't believe he's making them have this conversation outside _Pearson Hardman_ a few feet away from a _hotdog stand that sells weed on the side_.

Relenting, Harvey reaches over to tuck a stray hair behind her ear and lets his fingers linger, caressing the side of her neck for a moment before he draws back with a lopsided smile. "I've been readily informed that: 'of course exclusively seeing the same person for sex, dinners, and movie nights, while keeping regular contact via phone and going grocery shopping together more than once, and keeping a drawer of clothes of said person at your loft, for about two months, means that you are dating this person, Harvey. Now stop bothering me with your emotionally stunted issues and crisis of self-discovery.' I'm paraphrasing, of course."

Mike can't help gape at the torrent of words coming out of Harvey's mouth. Her cheeks are burning up, and her heart seems to be doing the rumba, and she can't help the utterly hopeless and embarrassingly _dopey _grin that spreads across her face when she realizes what he's saying. "Oh my God I can't believe you had _Donna_ tell you we are dating and then you tell _me_ when we're _five feet away from a weed selling hot dog stand."_

She sees him close his eyes and lower his head, pinching the bridge of his nose, but the twitch of his lips and the rose color of his cheeks give him away. "Me neither," he sighs, sounding pained, but she cuts him off by sliding in close and bending over and down to kiss his downturned face. She presses her lips against his, feeling him startle against her, and slips her tongue out to tease his mouth open. He places a hand on the back of her neck, repositioning them so she's no longer contorted, and for a moment she's tempted to slide into his lap before she remembers they're in public, and _outside Harvey's place of employment_. Opps.

"Does this mean you're going as my plus one?" Harvey asks as she breaks them apart, brow raised and smirking. She's flushed and tingly from their kisses, and feeling awfully lightheaded, because while she hadn't gone into their arrangement expecting anything serious, she has never been good at casual relationships. She gets emotionally attached, wearing her heart on her sleeve and hoping for the best. While she might not have had expectations, it hadn't stop her from _feeling_, and though she has become accustomed to settling for what she can get over the years it doesn't mean she hasn't wistfully longer for more. That this once, the man she's been falling for, is giving her this leaves her feeling giddy and stupidly hopeful.

"Yeah," she breathes, unable to stop smiling. Harvey rolls his eyes, looking uncomfortable, but kisses her forehead gently while stroking a hand down her arm.

"Good. Wear the red dress, with the boat neck and black lace," Harvey requests her, smirking at her when she blushes and glares, because he knows very well how many red dresses she has. It's exactly one, and he'd bought it for her himself, after they had gone out eating and he realized her nicest dress not suited for the office was a simple black number from J.C. Penny that, while easy to get off, had apparently offended him on every other level.

Standing, he takes a hold of her hands and helps her up. "I think I might even let it slip to Donna that you're in need of some appropriate shoes," he adds absently, as if an afterthought, and she kicks him lightly in the shins for that.

"Don't you dare!" she hisses, pouting when Harvey simply chuckles.

"I'll talk to you later," Harvey interrupts with, leaning down for one last kiss on each of her cheeks, before ending with her lips. "Take care, Mike."

Embarrassingly endeared by him as always, Mike smiles shyly, basking in the warm feeling that settled in her chest after the words 'exclusive', 'dating', and 'plus one' left his lips. "Bye, you dork," she grins, tugging lightly at his tie and setting it straight before she steps back with a wave. After she has watched him walk away, when he's disappeared into the building of his office with a last wave of his own, Mike gives in. _She does it_.

She does a little victory wiggle.

It's less of a dance, and more of a shake of her butt, clapping of her hands, and slight bounce on her toes. Ignoring the wolf-whistle this earns from some nearby idiot, Mike turns on her heels and is on her way, feeling the world is at her feet and forgetting, for a moment, the stress of work and the daunting reality of being introduced into Harvey's professional life. She's awesome, she can handle _anything _right now.

(Thought maybe not Donna shoe shopping.)

**.**

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><p><strong>End notes: <strong>Yeppp...


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: **So this update was a bit late...I updated the story on AO3 ages ago then forgot to update it on here :,D OPPS.

Anyway, hi guys! I hope you had a great Christmas, or whatever else you celebrate this time of the year! :D I sure did :) Have some more fem!Mike/Harvey for the season 3

This piece takes place some time after Victory, but before the events of chapter 2, obviously. Harvey gets hit rather hard by the clue bat, and he's not really happy about it.

* * *

><p><em>All I wanted was a sweet distraction for an hour or two.<br>__Had no intention to do the things we've done.  
><em>_Funny how it always goes with love, when you don't look, you find.  
><em>_But then we're two of a kind, we move as one."  
><em>- _All Time High_, Rita Coolidge, _Octopussy_

**.**

**It started out as nothing but a repeat performance, then…well. Opps?**

**.**

The third time Harvey caved and texted Mike to come over, he gave himself a stern talking to in the bathroom mirror, after having showered. It's a Saturday evening and he's got Star Trek: The Motion Picture queued, beer in the fridge, and a pizza ready to go into the oven. It's not a date, he tells himself frowning. It's a booty call. Just because his booty call happens to be smart enough to appreciate Star Trek and good beer doesn't mean it's anything other than sex. If the benefits they have happen to involve sex and good quality sci-fi, that's just an unexpected bonus Harvey hasn't had the pleasure of having before. Which is the only reason for these repeat performances, he tells himself.

Satisfied, Harvey shaves his 3 o'clock shadow and doesn't bother with hair other than blow drying it and running a comb through it. Vegging out on the couch before copious amounts of sex doesn' require his usual amount of hair products, though he does brush his teeth and picks the soft v-neck Henley that compliments his shoulders and stretches tight across his chest. Its particular shade of red does wonders for his complexion and the brown of his eyes, according to Donna, who had gotten it for his last birthday. He chooses an old but comfortable pair of dark jeans to go with it, its fabric worn soft and slightly scuffed by the knees and hemlines. It doesn't hurt that they're perhaps a bit tight, especially across his ass.

Damn, but he is one hot bastard.

Exiting the bedroom, he pads over to the kitchen on bare feet and checks the oven temperature. Mike should be here in a few minutes, he notes, glancing at his watch. He puts the pizza in to cook, having had an impulse to make it himself instead of ordering in. He makes one mean pizza sauce, after all, and the toppings are always better fresh. It doesn't hurt that instead of the cheap wondermeat that is pepperoni, he's got some quality Italian green pepper salami and some Spanish ham. The dough is his brother's recipe, a result of having worked as a pizza baker for a year during his few years stay in Australia after college. As is a must, Harvey even covered the pizza in mozzarella cheese and grated some parmesan for added flavor. It's a masterpiece in the shape of a circle, topped with tomato sauce and meat and fresh vegetables. He's made two of them, the second waiting to be baked while he'll split the first one with Mike.

When the doorbell finally rings, the pizza only has about five minutes left, and Harvey has put out plates, glasses and napkins on the sofa table. Satisfied, he goes to open the door.

Harvey is greeted with bright blue eyes, a blinding grin, and…is that? Yes, yes it is. He groans.

"Mike, are you wearing a shirt that says 'Trek yourself before you wreck yourself'? With Spock on it? Are you really?" he asks, rolling his eyes heavenward and fighting a huge grin that really wants out. "Oh God, I'm fucking a teenaged dork."

Pouting, Mike does a big show of looking down on herself as if looking for what's wrong, flailing her arms when she can't. "What? There's nothing wrong with it! I dressed for the occasion, you know."

Arching a brow, Harvey leans casually against the doorframe. "Yes, because wearing a Trek shirt just screams sex."

Mike laughs as she pushes her way past him, rolling her eyes over her shoulder as she grins at where he's trailing behind her, having closed the door. "Oh please, as if you haven't got Star Trek queued on that ridiculously huge TV of yours."

Guilty as charged, he doesn't say, but he finally gives in and answers her grin. "You're the one who almost ran away with my entire collection, you little criminal."

"Mm, I'm glad I didn't," she admits, winking. "My TV isn't nearly as impressive. It would be a shame no to take full advantage of yours."

He almost walks right into her when she suddenly stops, though, standing in the middle of his apartment sniffing the air. With a groan that tugs playfully at his stomach, reminding him of naked bodies and kiss-swollen lips, Mike turns to stare wide-eyed at him. "What in all the things that are holy smells this divine?"

Taking a step closer to thoroughly invade her personal space, Harvey smirks, and tucks a stray strand of hair behind her ear. "Homemade pizza."

The noise she makes takes him by surprise, startling a loud, genuine laugh out of him.

"Oh my god, I'm going to suck your brain out of you dick for this, you gorgeous, amazing asshole."

Like he said, it's just sex. Nothing more.

**.**

The 19th time Harvey finds himself initiating a booty call, the 13th time it was more about the company that the actual booty, and the 8th time they'd gone out first before ending up at either of their places, Harvey feels it needs saying out loud.

"I don't do relationships," he says. "This is a casual, mutually beneficial, arrangement of non-exclusive sex."

Mike blinks at him, a few strings of spaghetti hanging from her mouth and smearing her chin with the pesto sauce they'd made together in Mike's shitty kitchen, after an impromptu grocery run when they realized her fridge was empty of anything but a jar of marmalade and some curdling milk. Slurping the spaghetti up, Mike reaches for her napkin and quickly wipes her mouth before answering. "Uh, yes? It's not like I expected anything else, Harvey, if that's what you're worried about. You're really not the type for an adult, steady, romantic relationship, exactly."

She laughs, and shoots him a grin, before going back to her food. Harvey frowns, inexplicably miffed. "What do you mean, I'm 'not the type'?"

Not even deigning to glance up from her mountain of pesto drenched pasta, Mike shrugs absently. "You see commitment and you sue it for all its worth before kicking it to the curb. You take emotional attachment and laugh it in its face before telling it to fuck off. Not exactly the attitude or world view best suited for the basis of a healthy relationship. Not one I'd want, anyway."

He slumps back in his seat, taken aback. Not by the surprisingly accurate, if perhaps a bit strongly worded, analysis of his stance on romance, but rather by his reaction to having what is essentially the truth thrown in his face like it's nothing. And it is. It is nothing, because it's exactly what he wanted cleared up. Except now that it turns out Mike was on the same page all along, it doesn't…feel right. He's frustrated, for one, and strangely despondent, instead of pleased and relieved. It feels like she's just thrown down a challenge, and that's not right, is it? It's not like he wants to prove her wrong. Right?

"Right," he says, weakly, not really interested in his own well-stacked plate anymore. Unaware, Mike reaches for her wine glass and smiles, taking a sip. He wants to take it out of her hands and insist, petulantly, that he too can be part of a healthy romantic relationship, it's not like it's that hard. He'd surely excel at it, in fact, just like he does everything he puts his mind to (disregarding his previous attempts, of course). It's just that he doesn't want to, okay? That's all.

Why would he want to have a relationship with Mike anyway? They already have amazing, uncomplicated sex. He doesn't have to do one-night stands anymore, which is convenient, because he'd almost forgotten how great it is to fuck someone who knows your body. They even have intelligent conversation, which is a rarity even at work, and exchange obscure references as easy as breathing, which is previously unheard of. It's like he's been speaking a language no one knew until Mike, and it's awesome, and uncomplicated, and casual and easy. Why mess it up withfeelings? That's just stupid.

But, he thinks with a sinking feeling of dread, it might be too late. She's telling him about the pro-bono she worked this week, which she helped her senior partner win, totally unbothered and oblivious to his predicament. He realizes then that he is dejected, that it felt like a challenge because he wants to take up on it.

That Harvey 'You can play my bed posts like a Güiro for all the notches' Specter should want an exclusive, romantic relationship is improbable. Improbable, but apparently, true. Because, in the words of Sherlock Holmes: when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.

Shit.

**.**

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><p><strong>End notes: <strong>Oh Harvey, you're in too deep now :,) IT'S TOO LATE FOR YOU NOW MWAHAHAHA *evil cackling*


End file.
